Entertainment
Local

Grand opening for Grande Parlour

After one year, a land-use change, and renovations, the Grande Parlour had its grand opening July 21 with the first performance of Let Me Entertain You.

Teresa Pettit, creative director of the Grande Parlour, was on her way out of Cold Lake after a series of ups and downs in the theatre community had left her wary of staging more shows, when she first heard from Craig Konechny, the owner of Beantrees Café, and partner of the Grande Parlour.

“Craig bought Beantrees in January of 2016, so they started looking for visual artists to hang on the walls, they facilitated open mic nights and concerts, and they’ve had comedians in, and something that Craig really wanted was to put on a small theatrical production in Beantrees,” said Pettit.

Pettit and Konechny joined forces for The Diaries of Adam and Eve in 2016, and after the success of the show at Beantrees, it became clear there would be enough support in the community to make theatre a more permanent fixture in the city.

With this discovery, Pettit was able to quit her job, forsake Edmonton, and begin working full-time on realising a permanent theatre venue in Cold Lake. This venue would become the Grande Parlour, next door to Beantrees in the former Inspired Living Decor building.

The latest production put on by the Grande Parlour is Let Me Entertain You, a vaudeville-style show featuring jazz performers, burlesque, singing and dancing set in the prohibition era. The show will have four performances over a nine day period, and if successful, will allow the Grande Parlour to put on another show later this year.

“There’s always been a large amount of support for what we do, we always see that, we have had a really good sell for the first two nights [and] Cold Lake is a very last-minute town,” Pettit explained.

The next production that is being discussed is Arsenic and Old Lace, a morbid comedy about a man who marries on Halloween and when he visits his aunts to tell them the news, discovers a body hidden in a window seat.